Ivy Lin, a Chinese immigrant, grows up in a low-income apartment complex in Massachusetts desperate to assimilate with her American peers. She develops a crush on the golden boy Gideon Speyer, whose patrician New England family is the paragon of the WASP ideal. Ivy's mother is a Tiger Mom, berating Ivy regularly when she disapproves of her grades, her looks, her attitude. But that's where the familiar story ends. Because Ivy has a mentor-her grandmother Meifeng- from whom she learns to shoplift to get the things she needs. Ivy develops a taste for winning and for wealth. Years later, when she bumps into Gideon's father, Ivy believes it's destiny. She's worked long and hard to be the right woman for Gideon. But just as they begin dating, another man from Ivy's past appears, and he has his own set of rules. Ivy soon has a foot in two vastly different worlds. The question is: Which will she choose? A coming-of-age story, a love triangle, an exploration of class and race and identity.